Assessment reduced wage increase - there's shock about that (9)
I believe the answer is:
appraisal
'assessment' is the definition.
(I know that appraisal is a type of estimate)
'reduced wage increase there's shock about that' is the wordplay.
'reduced' means to remove the last letter.
'wage increase' becomes 'raise' (I've seen this before).
'there's shock' becomes 'appal' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about that' indicates putting letters inside.
'raise' with its final letter removed is 'rais'.
'rais' inserted within 'appal' is 'APPRAISAL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for appraisal that I've seen before include "Evaluation - price survey" , "rating" , "judgment" , "Evaluation - papal airs (anag)" , "valuation" .)